Volume 1, Number 1301 November 2018

"That's pretty much the strongest EOYT Bok squad that could have been selected. Yes, one could argue for a Du Preez over Whitely. Or Akker over Brits. But one could also argue for Whitely over Du Preez or Brits over Akker. So novel though: no complaining & full supporting." - @Runningflyhalf on Twitter

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End Of Year Tour Springbok Squad

It has become standard practice in recent years for the pundits to shred the selections of any Springbok squad. Perhaps it’s still the honeymoon period after the Wellington win against the All Blacks but head coach and SA Rugby Director of Rugby, Rassie Erasmus, seems to presently have a relatively free ride.

His selections for inclusion in the Springbok squad of 36 to travel on the 2018 Castle Lager Outgoing Tour to the United Kingdom and France have been largely been un-criticised, and even praised. For the month-long tour, he has named 20 forwards and 16 backs.

“This tour to the northern hemisphere will be another tough test of our team’s character and we are looking forward to the exciting challenges against England, France, Scotland and Wales,” said Erasmus.

But it wasn’t easy because of injuries to key players: Lionel Mapoe was ruled out and joins Tendai Mtawarira, Ross Cronje, Lukhanyo Am and Makazole Mapimpi on the sidelines.

 

Apart from Mapoe, all of the others had been part of the Castle Lager Rugby Championship squad.

Erasmus took the opportunity to bring three new caps into his squad to the EOYT, specifically: Sergeal Petersen (wing), Ruhan Nel (centre) and JD Schickerling (lock). He has also recalled Gio Aplon (outside back), Louis Schreuder (scrumhalf), Trevor Nyakane (prop), Lood de Jager (lock) and Duane Vermeulen (loose forward). You can find the full squad here.

The Springboks face England at Twickenham on 3 November, followed by a meeting with the French in Paris one week later on 10 November.

Their third Test on Tour is against Scotland at BT Murrayfield in Edinburgh on 17 November, and they wrap up their month-long tour with a visit to the Principality Stadium, where they are due to face Wales on 24 November.

 KEY TOPICS IN THIS NEWSLETTER

Breakthrough player of the yearThe Year of the Young Gun (Blitzbokke)South American rugby to go Pro

 

Mixed-bag in Pro14 last weekendGloucester Targets Young TalentThe Weekend’s Rugby Action

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Breakthrough player of the year

World Rugby last week announced the three nominees for its Breakthrough Player of the Year. South Africa's Aphiwe Dyantyi, Ireland's Jordan Larmour and New Zealand's Karl Tu'inukuafe have been shortlisted for the award sponsored by Tudor.

The announcement on the World Rugby website features a video clip cataloguing some of the exploits of the three nominees. It’s brilliant but, for me, Dyantyi’s best try of his career thus far was undoubtedly the solo effort for the Lions against the Bulls. You’ll find that at about 2:10 in this collage of his exploits on YouTube.

Getting back to the award, as a South African and a Lions supporter, there can be no question that Dyantyi should sweep the award. But we'll know after the World Rugby Awards on 25 November.

 

Oh ja, I should mention that the pool of players for the award is generally quite small because, to be eligible, players must have played less than one year of senior international rugby. Despite that, any one of the three nominees would be a worthy winner.

The Year of the Young Gun

With a new season of HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series beckoning in just less than a month, excitement is building and preparations are starting to wind up for the current champions. Having won the series two years on the trot, the Blitzbokke will be keen to emulate New Zealand by becoming the only other team to win three (or more) successive series titles.

It’s worthwhile to note that the Kiwis have done it twice: a run of six wins from the inaugural tournament in 1999/00 to 2005/06; and another four wins in a row again from 2010/11 to 2013/14. Fiji is the only other team to have done the double (2014/5 and 2015/16).

Getting back to the Blitzbokke, it’s interesting that, as an article in SA Rugby’s Springbok Online Magazinedetails, they won the title earlier this year after being forced to blood a lot more youngsters than may normally have been the case. Many of those youngsters took their opportunities and will be very difficult to leave out of this year’s campaign.

Players such as Dewald Human, Mfundo Ndhlovu, Heino Bezuidenhout and James Murphy, among others, are going to key if the Blitzbokke are going pull off the treble. Kick-off in Dubai of the first round is on 30 November.

Despite the draw having been made a week ago, at the time of writing HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series web site and app had yet to be updated with the draw. But it can be a useful resource.

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Mixed-bag in Pro14 last weekend

On Friday night, the Southern Kings hosted a Scarlets team weakened by injuries and international call ups and looked like being comfortable winners, for the second time this season. But a few highly questionable decisions at crucial times by Irish referee, John Lacey, cost the home side dearly.

Oddly, while the television commentators remarked on some of those, none of the match reports (here, here and here) that we found thought it worthy of mention. Perhaps the reporters didn’t actually watch the match since at least one of them had the wrong venue.

Meanwhile on Saturday, the Cheetahs took full advantage of the home-ground advantage and put in a masterful display against the Cardiff Blues – the home team were out to a 14-0 lead over inside 12 minutes. And the defence stood up to the Welsh barrage because the lead wasn’t relinquished at any time in the game.

 

The final whistle saw the home team run out 21-10 winners, chalking up the long-awaited first win of the season.

But the Cheetahs will need a few more results like that – especially away from home – if they are going to make the playoffs for a second year running. Fortunately, they have time on their side with a full 17 rounds still to come.

 

South American rugby to go Pro

With rugby now an international game that has been fully professional since the early-to-mid-1990s, it is sometimes forgotten that many of the smaller rugby countries are still largely sustained by amateur leagues.

South America is a classic example. Four countries on that continent play the game a reasonably high level but only Argentina has professional players, mostly plying their trade in Europe. The inclusion of the Jaguares in Super Rugby brought some of that home recently but until the country has more teams competing in that sort of competition, the growth of professionalism will be constrained.

Meanwhile, in Brasil, Chile and Uruguay, rugby is still largely amateur or, perhaps, semi-pro, where players get small stipends and expenses refunded.

 

But that, may be about to change as plans are afoot for a continental club competition.

The article suggests it will happen next year but, as no announcements could be found subsequent to the date of this article (February), that does appear doubtful. But perhaps things have been moving along behind the scenes. Watch this space.

 

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Lions lose another excellent coach

As if it’s not bad enough that the Lions lost their head coach to English Premiership side, Gloucester, last season [let’s not mention all the players that followed him – Ed]. Now the Johannesburg franchise has also lost its extremely successful under-21 coach to the Springbok cause.

After winning the SA Rugby U21 Championship with the Xerox Golden Lions, Bafana Nhleko, will join SA Rugby as the Junior Springbok assistant coach on a four-year contract. The Lions loss is the Baby Boks gain but the fanatical Lions supporters in THIS newsroom are not happy about it.

The 35-year-old Nhleko has been in the Lions’ coaching structures since 2011 and capped off a successful run this past weekend with an emphatic  58-24 victory over the Vodacom Blue Bulls in the SA Rugby U21 Championship final at DHL Newlands.

The triumph was the Lions' second title in only three seasons, after Nhleko had also steered the team to victory during his debut season in the role in 2016.

He also guided the union’s SuperSport Rugby Challenge team to the semi-finals last year, and the Xerox Golden Lions U19 team to the final in 2013.

Rassie Erasmus, SA Rugby’s Director of Rugby, is delighted: “Bafana is a quality coach, who is respected by his peers and the players, and we are pleased that he has joined SA Rugby’s coaching ranks.”

 

Gloucester Targets Young SA Talent

Meanwhile, in addition to attracting senior Lions' players with UK-sized salaries, former Lions coach, Johan Ackermann, is now going after young South African talent to fill spots in the Gloucester Rugby senior academy. The latest player to move to the UK is 20 year-old fly half Dom Coetzer.

He was signed for the academy side but ran out for the senior team in last weekend's Gallagher Premiership clash against Wasps. Although he played out of his customary position at 12, he managed to score a try on debut.

Coetzer was signed from the Western Province Rugby Academy (WPRA) along with loosehead prop, Luke Dalbock, who will be undertaking a two-month trial with the English club after his standout performances for the WPRA over the past 5 months.

To be fair to Ackers, his talent scouts are not just looking in South Africa. They have signed Scotland Under-20s lock Harry Butler from London Irish (a team that was relegated this season) as well as nine youngsters who have graduated from the junior setup.

WPRA Director of Rugby, Anton Moolman, welcomes the opportunities for these youngsters, noting that the academy’s role is to create depth for WP Rugby but also for creating pathways for youngsters to pursue and realise their dreams. “We will be watching their progress closely as they look to take the next step in their professional careers.”

 

A Currie Cup to Forget for Many

In previous years, at this time of year the only rugby we had to watch was Currie Cup and the soon to begin Springbok tour of the northern hemisphere. But now, thanks to streaming technology, we can watch tournaments around the world and it has exposed just how weak is Currie Cup rugby.

But, you may ask, why watch international competitions instead of local rugby? Actually, that’s debateable, because many of our best players have moved to foreign leagues to make a decent living. Watching foreign leagues thease days means, almost inevitably, that South African players will be on the field.

Indeed, as of this past weekend, a total of 136 players of South African origin have represented clubs in four of the most competitive overseas leagues this season: PRO14 (24); Gallagher Premiership (33); French Top 14 (46); and Japan Rugby Top League (33). Many are current or former Springboks who, in years long gone, would have been playing Currie Cup rugby.

And then there’re the Cheetahs, who lost some of their best players to the above-mentioned leagues as well as to a certain seaside town. And then, they had to field two teams (one in the PRO14 and one in the Currie Cup) but they just don’t have that kind of depth any more.

All of these factors expose the weakness of the Currie Cup, a fact that was underscored by the selection of nine (25%) overseas players in the 36-man Springbok squad.

 

If history is any guide, the chances are pretty damn good that all nine internationally based players will get in game time during the End Of Year Tour but the statistics suggest that not every member of the squad will be so lucky.

As pointed out by Russ Petty (@rpetty80) on Twitter on Saturday: in all tests since 2016, 31 Springboks were left warming the bench. Contrast this with New Zealand, where, over the same period, every single one of the match day 22/23 took the field.

Oh ja, if anyone is actually interested in the result of the second rate competition, the Currie Cup was won by the Natal Sharks.

[We had a lot of argument in the newsroom about which verb to use there. I lost the argument – Ed]

 

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The Weekend Rugby Action

The big one is at Twickenham this weekend when the Springboks take on the old foe at 5pm. And given that Faf de Klerk, Franco Mostert and Willie le Roux are unavailable due to club commitments, it will be interesting to see what selections the coach makes.

He certainly has cover at lock and fullback but the jury is still out on whether or not South Africa has adequate cover at scrumhalf. The way that Faf has lifted his game since he moved to Sale in the English Premiership, has left an enormous pair of shoes to fill.

Other international matches this weekend include Japan versus New Zealand (7:45am), Wales versus Scotland (4:45pm), Ireland versus Italy (10pm) and USA versus the Maoris (Sunday at 0:15am).

And for a nice change, the PRO14 provides some Sunday rugby action as the Southern Kings take on Leinster in PE at 2:45pm and the Cheetahs host Munster two hours later in Bloem. Two wins would be nice but I’m told the Cheetahs may field a weakened team because of the need to rest players involved in Tuesday’s Currie Cup promotion/relegation match.

 

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